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First time accepted submitter SingleEntendre (1273012) writes "Time is running out for the Mayday PAC to reach its latest crowd funding goal of $5M. The total currently stands at $4.5M. Led by Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig, the Mayday PAC seeks to reduce the influence of money in US politics by 2016, primarily by identifying and supporting congressional candidates who share this vision. If phase 2 is successful, with matching funds the total raised will be $12M. A self-imposed deadline arrives at of midnight tonight, July 4th, Hawaii-Aleutian Standard Time (HAST)." (And now the total's at $4,700,066.)

>He is fighting the system from within the system, something I didn't think was possibleQuite. I have my doubts as to how successful it will actually be in the long term*, but the only other alternative seems to be violent uprising, about which I have even greater doubts as to the wisdom and efficacy of. So I've got my fingers crossed and am cheering him on mightily.

* I'm betting there's 160 or so people who will gladly donate a few tens of millions each out of their pocket change to lobby against such

Yes. He has a long history of general badassery. There are only a few people who I can think of who have the reputation and intelligence to properly navigate a project of this scale, and he is certainly one of them. I really hope that the fund makes it through to the next stage. It looks like it will.

Right. I disagree with him for the most part politically. But his work so far in my eyes has been intelligent, refined and not of the sort I have a lot of distaste in. When he disagrees with something I support, I can generally look at his argument as a refutation of my own as apposed to some ad hominem attack. He has a point, I can think about it and argue against it or support it. I usually still feel I'm right, but it's not like a line from Anne Coulter or Alan Baldwin where I know I'm going to disagree before they even finish the sentence. He's a worthy opponent which is a rare thing in this modern, black and white, low brow political scene.

If he's successful, he'll take tax money from you and 300 million others and give it to candidates running for office.

If he's unsuccessful, you'll be a sucker and we'll all be a lot better off.

If a functional democratic system treats every candidate the same way in supporting i. e. financing after a certain popularity threshold is reached, who would that entity be other than an entity of the governing system in place?

As it is currently in the US, it's a hotchpotch of corruption destroying the very foundation of democracy. Can't even guarantee voting integrity across the board when some goons thinking doing the right thing are turning the screws somewhere in secret.

The issue I have with this entire thing is they want to use *my* tax money to buy ads for politicians I don't support. If they have another solution to the problem that doesn't involve spending my money, well great. But that's not what Lessig is soliciting money for right now. He's soliciting money to (effectively) raise my tax rate, with the additional funds going towards political campaigns.

The issue I have with this entire thing is they want to use *my* tax money to buy ads for politicians I don't support.

Your point: Well, that has been tried, reducing tax you pay being used for stuff you don't like - try holding back the % used for war spending if you don't like it and see what happens. Looks like a hassle.

The tax system and government should be trustworthy, apparently they are not. Why is a good question. Not sure who the bigger crooks - corporate or government head-hanchos and who is doing more harm to the greater part of a population?

With Lessing - let's see what happens if he can avoid the ego trip and

First, your taxes are spent on things you don't agree with. So are mine and everyone else's. You have a right to complain about how that money is spent, but nobody sane advocates a system where your taxes are only spent on things with which you agree.

That said, I'm not convinced that spending tax money to support campaigns is the ideal solution. However, it's perhaps the only solution that is politically viable but could still produce meaningful change. The Supreme Court refuses to put any limits on campaig

Either fair elections are important to you, or they aren't. The system you propose is the system we have already (by refusing to consider alternatives) and you will note that your proposal has already been tried and found to be unfair.

If you have an alternate proposal for making elections fair, and letting voices be heard, we're all interested. If all you want to do is complain, why should anyone care?

'fair' is one of those words like 'good' that are really hard to pin down to what is meant when they are used. Let's substitute in another vague word:

Either good elections are important to you, or they aren't. The system you propose is the system we have already (by refusing to consider alternatives) and you will note that your proposal has already been tried and found to be ungood.

There. That didn't add to or change the meaning of what you typed at all.

Anecdotal evidence could work here just as well. Citizens United represents everything you need to know about politics in the United States. If you don't have enough money, you don't have enough "free speech." The polls say more than 90% of the country does not want Comcast to buy Time Warner Cable, and for some

Or what about what happened to Obama's election promises about getting rid of lobbyists and being transparent? I do believe he was pressured by the incumbents into changing his mind. He might have been honest when he first got elected, but, as they say, the system is too strong. He got borged into it.

Or, he was a lying, conniving SOB from the start, and like any other politician said anything he had to to get elected. Our only option is to cut off the air supply (taxes.)

The whole thing is still silly, a single person like Bill Gates, Larry Ellison or Steve Job's wife (to pick the popular easy to recognize names) can easily out fund this PAC with nothing more than a signature and a laugh about it... there are thousands of people who can do it. This PAC is one.

The civil unrest is pretty tangible on the circles I visit on the Internet, and that's spilling over into Real Life (tm). Congress' approval rating is at an all-time low. This country has been around 400 years. It's never been lower. (Okay, it was probably lower back when the Tea Party actually meant something.)

Now, I'm not saying it's going to happen, but sometimes I think this country just needs another civil war against its government. After all, the United States was founded by British colonialists ta

It's also pretty hard to fight back when the other side is so much better armed than you. A bunch of NRA members with assault rifles won't last long against tanks and fighter jets without outside support and the most powerful of the US' enemies are too far away to give any meaningful support and taking that support would immediately lose any popular support you might get.

I know what they CLAIM to represent, and I know what they represent in their words and deeds.

Most of the ones who I've heard open their mouths are blatant christofascists, historical revisionists, racists, sexists, etc. My assessment that they want to turn us into a "Christian Saudi Arabia" is based on their words and deeds (listen to their talking points, there's a lot of Christian nation, Seven Mountains Mandate and the like talk).

Most of the ones who I've heard open their mouths are blatant christofascists, historical revisionists, racists, sexists, etc.

This.

I keep hearing the "But, but, that's not really the Tea Party!" nonsense. I tell them the same thing every other group gets told:

These people are operating under your colors. They represent you, whether you like it or not. Don't like it? Do something about it. Or you can play at being the Catholic church, sweep it under the rug, say, "But, but, it's only a comparatively few..." and have everyone make altar boy jokes about you, forever.

By the way, I receive SSI disability (because as a result of diagnosed mental issues I am unemployable, and I have effectively no family); furthermore I am under the LGBT umbrella - the Tea Party types have been very vocal in saying that they consider my type to be a waste of oxygen, and wouldn't want my support even if I were willing to give it to them.

If you are going to get this into name-calling and shouting of drivel, at least come out from behind the AC mask. The only folks I can see that are preaching oppression of others are the TeaPubs. Please, save me from them.

"Allegedly" is right. The level of rhetoric here is nuts: Mayday's stated goal is to change the way that campaigns are funded such that each person (voter) can contribute equally to the campaigns of their choice. This is in opposition to the current method, where each person can contribute an amount limited only be their means, giving drastically more influence (or speech, as the supreme court sees it) to those of significant means.

There is no group being oppressed here, though I'm starting to think that

"Allegedly" is right. The level of rhetoric here is nuts: Mayday's stated goal is to change the way that campaigns are funded such that each person (voter) can contribute equally to the campaigns of their choice.

That's the exact problem I have with it. It's an effective tax raise, and what happens to the money raised? It goes to support candidates I might vehemently disagree with. To buy them TV commercials. I find that pretty objectionable.

Try looking at it this way: the 2012 election cost our economy just shy of $2 billion. If we do it through the voucher system, one of Mayday's proposed solutions, we can set that amount to whatever we like. Say $200 million, roughly the same as funded through FECA. That's a dramatic improvement in efficiency.

Now how you see that depends on your attitude towards money: the efficient method comes out of taxes (partially paid for by you), while the inefficient method is paid by third parties. In other words

Incumbents will always have the publicity advantage - though that also applies to bad publicity. If you think that carpet bombing the public with corporate-funded messages is an appropriate way to counter that, then where's the room for non-corporate messages. Somebody's still got an unfair advantage. Candidates of all stripes are well enough versed in media manipulation to largely counter the encumbent's 'newsworthiness' advantage - though I guess the media (and the public) are slow to pay attention unt

yeah, Lessig always correctly identifies the corruption thst results ftom power being for sale, and then he proposes creating more power to solve it, 'cause, honest, it'll be different this time. He and his well-meaning friends will make sure of that.

No matter what you think of Lessig, I think that the experiment in and of itself is interesting.

It's something that hasn't been tried before. If it doesn't work, a bunch of people are out parts of $5mil. If by some miracle it DOES work... well, then what's the use of decrying it?

The only real downside I can see to this PAC is that people who might have put their time/money into some competing and more effective project put it into this one, pinning more hope on the strategy than maybe they should have.

But unless we see it attempted at least once, we won't really know what effect it will have on the political climate.

If you think the system's broken now, try later when the only people who get to run are those who can cobble together enough votes to get government funding, which is to say, the two main parties as they currently stand.

The only people to even touch on that percentage the past fifty years were Ross Perot, who funded himself (this will be illegal now???) and John Anderson, the libertarian candidate in 1980.

Yes, this will fix the problem...in the sense of entrenching the status quo even more.

Exactly! I refuse it to support Mayday until they stand up for term limits. I asked a question about this in the "Ask Larry about Mayday" story. Then they used a "new and improved format" for his responses and dumped my +5 rated question.

Mayday, if they succeed will give us the same thing we have now, lifetime legislators. Their voucher system will end up a Massive advantage to incumbents.

Mayday, incidentally, should be a strikingly American day on the calendar, as it commemorates the May Day Massacre [nbcchicago.com] which happened in Chicago. The people killed were Communists and Anarchists, though, so it isn't gonna go on the Official Holiday Calendar in the US.

The grandparent was talking about some kind of fictional first-past-the-post campaign funding system that no one has proposed. You are saying that the voucher system will give a massive advantage to incumbents. Could you explain your position? Vouchers are given by voters to the candidates of their choosing - how does this give an advantage to incumbents?

Thank you, that is a well thought out and reasoned answer. That's what I was looking for with my question to Lessig.

I can fully understand that term limits may be a "next thing" sort of activity for his PAC. But without an answer to my question, the answer could also be that he doesn't believe that they are important and will eventually be needed.

The difference here is that the politicians know that votes are fickle, but money is money.

I just thought of another problem with this though: for money to really speak, it has to at least have the appearance of being a continual stream. That means that once this $12mil warchest is used up, there has to be assurances that there will be ANOTHER war chest lined up to keep supporting things. Otherwise, it's easier to go with the other PAC who wants to keep things as they are, but will only donate $3mil/year.